- 紙本白描東大寺戒壇院扉絵図
- 1 scroll
- Ink on paper Handscroll
- H 28.9, L 1114.0 (Total L 11,136.5)
- Heian period/12th century
- Nara National Museum
- 1423(絵270)
The ink-line drawings in this scroll depict eight bodhisattvas making offerings of music or holding out flower baskets together with the devas Bonten (Skt. Brahmā) and Taishakuten (Skt. Śakra), the Four Heavenly Kings, and two gate guardians (J. Niō). Inscriptions on the external packaging and back of the work suggest it preserves iconographies from the doors of a portable shrine in the Kaidan-in of Tōdaiji Temple. The shrine was installed in the Kaidan-in in Tenpyō Shōhō 7 (755) but was destroyed when soldiers started fires at the temple in Jishō 4 (1180). These drawings must have been copied before that event, making them critical historical sources that preserve the appearance of the now-lost doors that were produced in the Nara period (710–794). The scroll was formerly owned by Kōsanji Temple in Kyoto and is listed in the Catalogue of Shingon Texts Held in the Sutra Repository of Kōsanji Temple, which was compiled in Kenchō 3 (1251). Additionally, the appearances and dimensions of the six deities Bonten, Taishakuten, and the Four Heavenly Kings in this work are nearly identical to those depicted in the Kusha Mandala (Tōdaiji Temple), which likely dates to the late Heian period (794–1185). Moreover, the notations indicating colored pigments that were made only for these six deities are also almost identical to their coloring in the Kusha Mandala. These similarities suggest the works are closely related and offer faithful reproductions of the lost original paintings.
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